Rambo: Last Blood (2019) Lionsgate/Action-Thriller RT: 89 minutes Rated R (strong graphic violence, grisly images, drug use, language) Director: Adrian Grunberg Screenplay: Matt Cirulnick and Sylvester Stallone Music: Brian Tyler Cinematography: Brendan Galvin Release date: September 20, 2019 (US) Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Yvette Monreal, Adriana Barraza, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Oscar Jaenada, Genie Kim/Yenah Han, Joaquin Cosio, Louis Mandylor. Box Office: $44.8M (US)/$95.1M (World) Body Count: 45
Rating: ** ½
I’m of two minds about Rambo: Last Blood, the supposedly final installment of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo franchise. The abridged version of my opinion goes something like this: it’s a bad movie but a good action flick. I realize that this will require some explanation so let’s get right to it.
When originally conceived in David Morrell’s 1972 novel First Blood (and the 1982 film adaptation), John Rambo was symbolic of the mistreatment Vietnam vets endured upon coming home. The PTSD-afflicted Green Beret was pushed to violence after being abused by a bunch of small town cops. By the time they made the first sequel, 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II, he was reduced to a cartoon-like unstoppable action hero who does most of his talking with automatic weapons, exploding arrows and his trusty knife. He’s been that way ever since. As much as I like the Rambo sequels (except Rambo III, it’s just okay), it can’t go unmentioned that he’s become very far removed from the character’s original conception which brings us to Rambo: Last Blood (or, if you prefer, Rambo 5).
This time, Rambo takes a page or several from the Taken series starting with his close father-like relationship with his headstrong teenage niece Gabrielle (Monreal, Lowriders). He’s been taking care of her since her mother died ten years earlier. She helps his train horses on the Arizona ranch he inherited from his father. One day, an old friend now living in Mexico calls to say she found Gabrielle’s long-absent father. She wants to go see him and ask why he walked out on his family. Rambo and her grandmother (Barraza, Babel) try and talk her out it. He tells her it’s too dangerous. She goes anyway. A short while later, they receive word she’s disappeared. Rambo goes to Mexico where he learns she was kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel led by brothers Hugo (Mencheta, Life Itself) and Victor Martinez (Jaenada, Snatched). They intend to use her and other cowering young girls as sex slaves. Naturally, he plans to rescue her and, while he’s at it, take down the entire cartel.
If you look at Rambo: Last Blood from a critical point of view (and I don’t recommend it), it’s a bad movie. The acting is horrendous. Watching 73YO Sly lumber his way through a basic action movie scenario, I can’t believe it was only four years ago he was up for an Oscar for Creed. He grunts his dialogue, some of which borders on the parodic, as though he were a caveman. Among the toppers are “I’m gonna hurt you real bad” and “I want them to know that death is coming”. Paz Vega (Spanglish) co-stars as an “independent journalist” investigating the cartel. Her reasons for wanting them taken down are personal (of course). Other than helping Rambo in his hour of need, her character goes nowhere. Jaenada and Mencheta overplay it to the max as Mexican cartel caricatures without leaving much of an impression.
Rambo: Last Blood is also badly written. The screenplay by Stallone and Matt Cirulnick is full of holes. I had a ton of questions afterwards. There’s a scene where Rambo drives right through a border fence on a return trip to the US. Where is the border patrol? At the end, when Rambo wages war on the cartel gang at his ranch, where are the police? You can’t expect me to believe that nobody heard all the gunfire and explosions. I know it’s a small rural town but surely they at least have a sheriff and deputy. Even Mayberry had Andy and Barney, for Pete’s sake.
It takes a while for the real action to kick in. For the first hour or so, the movie’s slow pace and clunky narrative, not to mention the unrelenting brutality (mainly at Gabrielle’s expense), make for an uneasy and unpleasant viewing experience. There’s a ton of additional script problems but let’s leave that and move on to the bigger picture.
As opposed to the jingoism of previous installments, Rambo: Last Blood is extremely xenophobic. It plays right into the fears of Mexicans being perpetuated by a certain world leader. I half-expected audience members to start chanting “build that wall”. Instead of wrapping its hero in the American flag, it uses him to push a different kind of political agenda. This is, of course, assuming this idiotic movie has political subtext. Let me tell you, there’s absolutely nothing subtle about Rambo: Last Blood.
The preceding comments reflect only the film critic in me. They don’t necessarily reflect what I think as a movie fan. While heavily flawed, I don’t dislike Rambo: Last Blood. Remember what I said earlier about it being a bad movie and good action flick? I’d like to talk about the latter half of my statement now. I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I love bloody violence in a movie. The more, the better I always say. It’s the main reason I enjoyed the previous Rambo movie as much as I did. I’m happy to say that Rambo: Last Blood almost outdoes its predecessor. It has a ton of bloody violence especially in the last half hour. What Rambo does to those cartel creeps is out of hand! And tempted though I may be to describe the coolest scenes, I will refrain from doing so. I’ll only say the final kill is the best kill in the whole series.
As a simplistic action flick, Rambo: Last Blood is imperfectly serviceable. It has despicable bad guys, a hero we all know and not a single working brain cell. In the very final scenes (including mid-credits so stick around a little while), it’s even elegiac. I’d like to think that’s what director Adrian Grunberg (Get the Gringo) is going for here. After all, it’s supposed to be the final chapter of the Rambo saga. But you know what they say about sequels with “final” or “last” in the title. May I enter into evidence Exhibits A and B, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning. ‘Nuff said?
